A Hogwart Orphan
by Pisces Writer
Summary: A boy is adopted, and then he finds out who he really is. After that he has to collect the pieces and put them together like a puzzle to figuring out who his parents really were and why they left him at the orphanage.
1. Fate's Orphan

_**(none)**_

_**Prologue **_

"Can't."

"Can't what?"

"Can't do my homework."

We were sitting in the common room trying to finish our load of homework.

"Try Zack, try. Nean won't let you skip another assignment. You'll get detention! And although he only makes you do lines, you need all the extra time you can get!"

"But, come on Kyle! So I miss a practice. So what? We are already as perfect as we are going to get," Zack said picking up on my not so subtle hint about time.

"Every practice counts! Jeez. What if we blow the Championship? Hu? It would be because our best and fastest catcher wanted detention more than practice. Would you like that hanging over your shoulder?"

"I don't want detention more than practice! You know that this championship is important to me too. I'm just too bored and tiered. I'm going to bed."

"Fine! You are just letting down the team!"

"Night!" his voice was crisp cool.

"Great! Now I'm too upset to finish my own homework. I'll have to get up early tomorrow. Gosh. Thanks Zack, thanks!" I sarcastically said to the now empty room.

I sat back against the big, squishy armchair and let my mind wonder, while the fire flicked heat before me. I thought back to the first time I found out I was a wizard, and the first time I met Zack, the first spell I cast….

**Chapter One: _Fate's Orphan_**

"Get up you filthy child!"

"I'm up, I'm up!"

"Fine. You know the routine. Now, get to work!"

Once he was gone, I heaved a huge sigh. "I just want to get out of here!" I thought for the zillionth time.

I have been living, if you can call it that, at **Our Generation Foster Homes** for ten years, 361 days and six hours. Eleven years in three days, my birthday. I hate my birthday. Nothing special ever happens. That and my parents gave me away on my one year birthday. I don't remember anything before I walked in here. I do remember me walking in alone. I always wondered why my parents wouldn't walk with me and kiss me good-bye. It was the last day they would see me.

I also wondered why I learned to crawl at seven months and walk perfectly in eight months. I also learned how to talk when I was three months old. My childhood until I walked in here has been a complete mystery to me. The rest, just a misery.

"Get out here! Now!" Mr. Hairston roared.

Luckily for me I'm in the middle child group out of the twenty three that live here. So I don't get pushed around much by the older boys and I don't have terrible jobs like Elven. He's the oldest and he has to paint and re-paint the Foster home whenever it rains because Mr. Hairston won't buy the lasting type (thankfully for Eleven, it doesn't rain often) and change and feed and clean the baby's rooms. Babies need a lot of care, but they get taken first so every now and then Elven can relax for lack of babies. But not for long, because the cycle will continue and more babies will come.

We right now have three babies. One two months old, dropped off four days ago. Another six months and the last two years old who doesn't know how to talk or walk yet, so is of basically no use in Mr. Hairston's eyes.

"Did you hear me boy? Get your ass out here!"

Saying that he stomped in, and pulled my hair until I got off the stool that I had been using to put on my ratty torn shoes.

We are all used to the abuse and cursing, but the babies are what I worry about. I remember only being here two days and he set me to work. I'd never done any work before that I can remember, but I learned quickly enough. Kids usually do if you get smacked enough. By the end of that week, my butt was as red as a brick and my face black and blue.

I went down to hall to the kitchen, if you could call it that, grabbed a piece of bread (un-toasted of course), ate it in two bites and then went to clean the seven bathrooms, mow the yard, and make dinner. I learned a long time ago that you should eat any food that's given to you. Breakfast always contains just a piece of bread, lunch is nothing unless you are a baby and you get a bit of spoiled milk, and dinner is rice and watery soup. And you get water every night before you go to bed. Mr. Hairston makes it so that if you drink it and wet the bed, you have to sleep in it for three weeks before he allows you to wash it. That's it, but it was better than nothing.

I was on my sixth bathroom when Tom "Wolf" Deaver came rushing in. In a low quick whisper he said, "Come on Kyle! Don't you remember? The two month baby is being adopted today!"

"Oh! It totally slipped my mind. Let's go!"

We ran to the end of the hall where the best window to watch the front door is.

"Come on Wolf. Open it!"

"…beautiful, peaceful baby! Here's the rest of the paper work Mr. Hairston. Say bye-bye!"

"Hope she is everything you wanted. Good bye." Mr. Hairston can be so nice it's pathetic. Especially sense after they are gone and he shuts the front door he says such disgusting things. Cuss words and if the mistress is pretty it's worse.

"I can't believe that baby got adopted in four days and we have been here for eight and ten years! It's so un-fair!"

"Calm down Wolf! We'll get out of here eventu… quick to our chores!"

Coming up the stairs I heard heavy footsteps only Hairston could make.

"Why? It's not like Hairston is coming up the stairs or something," he replied.

"Yes he is! Get your ears cleaned! Now, shut the window and go back! Hurry!"

"He's not coming! But you're right about the window. The wind is a bit chilly."

"Get back to your chores! Quick!" I was getting frantic now.

"No, I refuse to be told what to do." Tom can be so stubborn some times.

"Please!" Seeing he wouldn't budge, I tried to grab his arm.

"Get off me!"

"Fine! I'm not gonna get caught though. I'm going back to my own chores. Good luck facing the beast, and I warned you!"

"He's not coming! He never comes upstairs in the afternoons!" Tom yelled at my back.

"Wow! How did you know?" Tom had managed to pretend he was cleaning the windows and so didn't get punished to get an awful chore added to his list of the chores he already has to do.

I flopped on to the bed that was really just a mattress as thin as paper and a small blanket that smelled of fungi.

"I told you. I heard him"

"But that's not possible. He didn't start coming up until three minutes after you went back to the bathroom."

"I'm telling you, I heard him! Come on, just drop it."

"Okay."

"I'm so sick of this place!" I stated a few minutes later.

"Yeah, I think everyone is."

"No! I've been here for almost eleven years and still nothing!"

"So? You're not the only one. What about Elven? He's been here sense he was two, so that's… thirteen years and still nothing!"

"I know. But all I want is a stroke of good luck. You know, being how it's my birthday and nothing ever goes right."

"Don't give up. No one can say what will happen in three days time. Who knows? You might get what you wish for."

"Yeah right."

"What will you do once you get out of here?"

"I don't know. Eat so much food that I can't even walk," I answer. "How 'bout you?"

"I want to go to school."

"School? Why school? Don't you want to ride amusement park rides, play sports, get a good hunting dog and hunt?" I really could not understand why anyone would go to school first thing.

"Nope. I rather go to scho…"

"Lights out!"

"Happy birthday Kyle," Tom said.

"What's so happy about my birthday? It's also my eleven year anniversary to this place."

"Come on Kyle. Cheer up. Today may be the day!"

"What day?" I had no clue what he was talking about.

"The day you get adopted! Who know? Now that it's your eleventh birthday you might get that stroke of luck."  
"Stop being so naive Wolf. I will never…"

"What's this? Talking? Well I can't allow this. You!" Oh, oh. Mr. Hairston grabbed my arm so tightly that I was sure the circulation was cut off from my arm.

He led me to a room that was "Forbidden" to us.

"Wait here, Mr. Chatterbox," He said sarcastically.

I waited outside. What was I waiting for? "My doom," I thought.

Mr. Hairston came out of the "Mysterious Room", as my friends and I call it, carrying a couple of pieces of clothing. We never get any new clothes, unless we grow, and we have to wait three months to clean our clothes fully. In between months we just put them in the sink. Of course Hairston doesn't know about that, he wouldn't like the waste of water. These seemed to be clean and new. I stared at them wondering if this was a cruel, sick joke. I wouldn't put it past him.

"Don't just stand there! Go clean up."

But I couldn't move. What was up?

"Sir, why are you giving me clean clothes?"

"As pathetic as you are some nut jobs want to adopt you. Now get cleaned up so you _will_ be adopted. I want any opportunities to get rid of you bastards fill-filled!"

"Ye…yes, sir."

I quickly grabbed the clothes and started for one of the seven bathrooms that I clean.

"Take a shower too smelly-ass! They'll be here in one hour. So hurry up!" Mr. Hairston yelled after me.

I ran to the bathroom and quickly closed the door.

"Is this a trick? He said they would be here in one hour! Demie said that Cory got a long shower and new clothes on the day he got adopted. Well, if it is a joke at least I'll be able to wear new clothes for a little while. I'd better hurry. Whether or not it really is a trick, better safe, clean and adopted then sorry, dirty, and stuck here."

As I thought this, I quickly undressed, hopped in the shower, and scrubbed so hard that I thought my skin might come off. "Just in case it isn't a trick," I thought to myself. "I want to get out of here more than he wants me to. I have got to tell Wolf!"

I finished rinsing, stepped out of the shower, and put on the new clothes. It felt weird, but nice at the same time. I opened the door and silently went up the stairs to Adam's bedroom, where Tom was probably scrubbing the floor.

"What happened to you?" He asked as soon as I walked in.

"Listen," I whispered. "Hairston gave me the clothes. He said that someone wants to adopt _me_!"

"Duh! I told you so. It's your eleventh birthday. The numbers can go backwards and forwards. So you made a wish that was opposite of what your real life is, so it came true."

"How do you know all that?" I couldn't help but ask.

"I have a lot of time to think about things while I scrub the floors." As he said that he shrugged his shoulders, as if it were no big deal and not at all a surprise that after eleven years I got adopted.

"What about Elven? Or the rest of the guys who have already had their birthdays? Why weren't they adopted?" I questioned.

"I'm not sure, but strange things always seem to happen to you so I just figured that if it happened to anyone, it would be you."

"Wow. I can not believe it. Oh no! The hour is almost up! I'll miss you. Tell the rest of the guys I say good-bye."

"'Ight. See you after _my_ eleventh birthday." Tom smiled a sad kind of smile.

I slowly made my way down the stairs. As much as I wanted to get out of here, I'm gonna miss Wolf. He's been the greatest best friend I could have ever asked for.

"It's about time!" Mr. Hairston whispered in my ear, interrupting my thoughts. "They are already here. Let's go! And don't screw this up for me! "

"For you! I'm the one getting adopted and hopefully getting out of here!" I wanted to yell at him.

"Don't just stand there! Get in there and be adopted!" He screamed at me. But he had to whisper-scream it because he probably didn't want them to think he was the mean old guy that he actually is.

So I walked into the sitting room Mr. Hairston had motioned to. Two people stood up.

"So you must be Kyle," the male said, as if he wasn't quite sure.

"Yes Sir," I answered trying to make a good impression.

"Oh, he's so cute!" This was from the female. What did she think I am? A puppy?

"So…I guess you know that we want to adopt you Kyle. That is, we want you to be our son. Would that be okay?"

"Yes Sir."

"Good. Then it's all settled! All the paper work is done, so you can come home with us now."

"Okay."

"Hope you get along quite well! Bye!" Mr. Hairston yelled after us.

We went through the door way and stepped outside. I breathed in a nice long deep breath of fresh air. It was like having a freedom. Sure I had been allowed to go outside, if I had chores, but the air always seemed to suffocate. Now it seemed to be relaxing and freeing. As we walked down the walkway, I couldn't help but look back. This had been my home for eleven years. Even thought I despised the place, I had a lot of memories and friends in there. I turned back to where I was walking to. It seemed that they drove an old Cadillac. It was pretty and shiny, yet really old.

We got in the car. The man got in the driver's seat with the woman next to him. I sat in the back. The man started the car and we drove away from the one place I had ever known with a dust of air.


	2. Reading Food

Reading Food

"So, tell us something about yourself James. How long have you been in the adoption home?" the female asked.

"Eleven years," I answered.

"Whew," the man whistled. "Eleven years? Wow! How old are you?"

"Eleven years today," I answered.

"It's your birthday? Wow. We'll have to do something for you-"

"It's okay, you don't have to," I said, cutting him off. He barely even knows me and he wants to do something special for my birthday. The kindness was shocking.

The man laughed a light laugh, practically a giggle, and said, "I know we don't have to, but you're part of this family now and we want to show that turning a year older deserves something special."

"Okay, if your sure," I said.

"Mhmm. So, do you have any questions for us?"

_Are you crazy? Of course I have questions! Where are you taking me? How long do you want me? What work am I supposed to do? What do I call you? _I thought.

Out loud I asked, "What do you want me to call you?"

"Well, we are your parents now. How about you call us Mom and Dad?" the female said.

I looked out the window. _Mom? Dad? They were crazy! I've never called anyone that, I'm pretty sure. _

We drove in silence for about forty five minutes, with only the radio making noise. The strangest thing was that the male didn't seem to know how to change the station. He tried and pushed all the buttons, but he didn't switch the knob. _What type of person doesn't know how to change a radio station in a car?_ I kept looking outside, wondering this and wondering when we'd get "home".

Then "Dad" turned onto a small road. The road was as curvy as a lawn mower's trail.

"We are almost there James." Dad said.

"Okay."

Despite them being crazy, they seemed to care a lot about making sure I liked them.

"Dad" turned into a nice short driveway, and I looked out the window at my new home.

"Not bad," I thought. The house was white with black shudders. The lawn had short grass the color of mint. A two-seater white swinging bench was facing a beautiful garden full of tulips, daisies, roses, and other flowers I could not name.

"Well, here we are. What do you think?" "Dad" asked, and I think there was actual concern in his voice.

"Wow! This is amazing!" I answered.

"Wait until you see the inside Kyle."

"Mom" and "Dad" didn't seem _that _bad. Who knows? I might actually like it here.

We walked up the sidewalk, then up the stairs to a porch that seemed to wrap around the house. "Dad" took the key out, unlocked the white door, and we stepped inside my new home.

What first caught my eyes was the staircase. From stories that kids who were lucky enough to have lived in a real home and know their real parents have told, the staircases are the best. Sliding down banisters, climbing the stairs again, then sliding down the banisters again. Everyone always said that's the most fun part of a house. This staircase had a long banister. It seemed to be calling out to me to slide down it. In the foster home we had stairs, but no banister. Which I guess would be thankful, because then that would be another job, dusting the banister.

I tore my eyes off the banister, making a mental note to slide down it later. I looked around more careful. If I thought the outside was beautiful, it was nothing compared to the inside.

Beautiful pictures hung on the wall; there was five pictures total. The ceiling was at least twelve feet high and the ground was wood. That was just the entrance hall!

I walked toward the room on the left; it was a living room. It had a grand piano in the corner, and this room also had pretty pictures. The ceiling was seven feet high. The floor was carpet though. It was lavender in color, and it still had a soft "new" look. A look that I've only seen when Lowes sent a catalog to Mr. Hairston with a sample of new carpet. The room also had a huge box (bigger than Mr. Hairston's!) and a long white leather couch in front of it. The strange thing was that neither seemed to have been used a lot. Maybe three times at the most!

"Do you want to see your room?" "Dad" asked. My new parents had been watching and observing me, I just realized.

"Um, sure."

I followed him down the hall and up the stairs, leaving "Mom" behind in the living room. Once we reached the landing, we walked down to the next-to-last door. "Dad" opened the door, and I walked in.

This room had to be the best room in the house. I had a window on the wall opposite of where I was standing, which was the doorway. On my left there was a closet door and a desk. On my right was my bed. It looked like heaven compared to what I had been sleeping on the last eleven years. The ceiling was a bit lower than the entrance hall and loving room. It had to be around six foot seven inches, give or take a few. "My room" was also carpeted. It was navy blue instead of lavender, but that was fine with me. I've always thought lavender was a girlish color. Next to the me, was a dresser. My own dresser! I wondered if I'd ever have enough cloths to fill it. It was made out of oak wood, smelled of oak, and was about five feet high with wide draws.

"So? What do you think?" He asked me.

After considering the question I said, "I love it!"

He smiled. I had said the right thing.

"You might want to take a nap. You look like you could use a nice nap."

"Okay," I agreed. I was tiered, and I was also eager to test out _my _new bed.

Knock, knock.

Was it only a dream? Was I still in that hell of a foster home? To open my eyes might make me realize that it had all been a dream. That my fantasy was just that, a fantasy.

Knock, knock.

That had to have been a dream. That was Mr. Hairston waking me up to do my choirs. But the dream had seemed _so _real!

"James, time to wake up. We're going out to eat sense it's your birthday."

"I opened my eyes so quickly that the light that "Dad" had switched on blinded me for a second. I was so glad that it wasn't a dream I wanted to hug "Dad". I restrained from doing it, though. Legally he may be my dad, but to me he was still a stranger. To hug him would be awkward.

"Okay," I answered him. I sat up, yawned, and then stretched. Then I climbed out of my heaven-of-a-bed and followed "Dad" downstairs where "Mom" was waiting, her coat already on.

"Do you like Chinese food?" She asked me as soon as I finished going down the stairs.

"I don't know. I've never had it before," I answered her.

"Would you like to try it, or would you like to go somewhere else for your birthday dinner?" "Dad" asked me.

"Sure, I'll try it." I didn't want to look like an idiot for not knowing other foods, so I agreed to go. What could it hurt? It was food, after all.

We went out the door, climbed back into the car in the same places, and "Dad" drove us onto the main road.

"The place we're going is called _The Golden Palace_ and they have a nice little buffet where you can eat as much as you want," "Mom" informed me.

"Okay," I answer, not knowing what else to say in response to her "nice little". How old did she think I was? Ten turning three?

We drove along for about twenty five minutes, then I saw it. _The Golden Palace_ wasn't golden. It was a dark brown and kind of boring looking place.

"Here we are James," "Mom" told me, as if I couldn't read the big sign saying _The Golden Palace_.

Surprisingly enough, I learned how to read at the foster home. One of the few things, other than how to clean, that I learned there. Mr. Hairston didn't care about our education, but somebody did. Someone had sent thousands of books to our foster home when I was about four. Enough books for a whole library!

Mr. Hairston had to put them somewhere, until he could find a place big enough to trash it, so he put it in a storage closet. The storage closet happened to be two doors down the hall, from where I slept.

A couple nights after he had put the books in the closet, I woke up and woke up Tom. Silently I whispered to him, "Tom. I want to learn how to read. I want you to learn too. That way when we get out of this dump, we will be smart because we can read."

"Okay, but why did you wake me up at like midnight and couldn't it have waited?"

"No! If we're going to do this, we have to do it in the dead of night so we don't get into trouble."

Tom sighed, and asked, "How will we learn?"

I grinned at him, and told him that I had an idea. "You know those books Anonymous sent us? We can learn from them! We can take a few books and teach ourselves during the night. During the day, they can stay in our pillow cases. Goodness knows no one ever cleans them!"

"Okay," Tom agreed, resolutely. "When should we start?"

"Tomorrow night, when Mr. Hairston is downstairs watching the box at full blast."

"Okay," Tom agreed, already half way back to sleep before ending the word.

So the next night, two hours after our official bedtime, we crawled out of bed and crept out the door. Down the hall we went, as silently as we could, until we were right in front of the closet door.

When we opened the closet door, it creaked and we froze in our tracks. After a few seconds, of which we were just standing outside the cracked opened door listening for any sign of Mr. Hairston, we heard nothing to imply that he had heard us, and we grew brave again. We slipped through the little space between the door and doorway, afraid to open it up any more than that for fear we wouldn't be so lucky next time.

Once we were safely in, we let out a quite sigh of relief and thanked God that Mr. Hairston blasts the box, and didn't think that anybody would try to steal the books out of the closet. He probably though no one would have the courage or something.

As I looked around I thought to myself, "Wow, I'll never run out of books."

Then Tom says in a quiet whisper, "Look! I found Mr. Hairston's keys! He must have dropped them when Sammy dropped the books on his toes, when the upper kids were bringing them upstairs. Ha, ha. I would _die_ to see Mr. Hairston dance like that again! Ha, ha."

"That gives me an idea! Quick, let me see those keys!"

Tom handed me the keys, so that they wouldn't make a big cluttering noise, and I quickly but quietly went to the door. I put the first key into the doorknob, without success. I did this over and over again, until finally a key slid home.

I then took that key off the ring as silently as I could, and then re-placed all of them except the one that slid into the doorknob.

I took the ring of keys and went out into the hall, with Tom watching me through the crack with huge curiosity. After I listened to make sure Mr. Hairston was still downstairs listening to the box, I tiptoed to the top of the stairs and placed the keys one step down.

After I had placed the key ring down, I tiptoed back to the closet, and back to Tom. His curiosity shown greatly in his clear blue eyes.

"I don't-" He said in a whisper. For our own safety's sake, I cut him off by putting my index finger against my lips in a "shush!" sort of way.

I tiptoed and squeezed back into the closet. Once in, I grabbed two of the thinnest books and motioned Tom to follow me. I handed him the two books, once outside of the door, turned and faced the door again, and shut it completely, with a resounding click. Thankfully, it didn't creak that time. I took the key that I had put in the only pocket I had, and locked the door. After that, I turned around and headed back into Tom's and my room, with Tom right behind me.

Both of us got in the room, Tom shut the door, and we went and sat on my bed. The only light came from the moon, that's light was streaming through a small paper sized window.

"So, you gonna tell me what that was about?" Tom asked me.

"You still don't get it? Geez Tom! I locked the door so Mr. Hairston couldn't go in there and throw out the books."

"Oh," Tom responded, then was quite for a few seconds. "Won't he know though? I mean, even he's going to realize it was a child who took the key."

"Not really Tom."  
"Hu? Why not?"

I sighed with forced patients and slowly explained to Tom why Hairston wouldn't realize it was a child who took it. "Mr. Hairston knows no one knows how to read. The few kids that do know, hate it so much, that hiding the key will make him think that he misplaced it."

"Oh! That's smart!"

"Yes, now will you calm down about taking the key?"

"Yeah, sorry."

"It's all right. For tonight we'll just try to find a hiding space for these books."

"What about the key?"

After a few minutes of thinking I said, "I know exactly where to put it."

I slid off the bed and walked to the front of the bed, saying "Help me move this back some Tom."  
"Why?" he asked me, as he joined me in front of the bed.

"I'll show you in a second. Okay, ready? Pull!"

We pulled and made a walking path between the bed and the wall. I went around the bed, then crawled in the path. I took the key and slid it in the mouse hole in the wall far enough in that no one would see it, yet close enough up that I could get it whenever I needed it.

I crawled back out and joined Tom, where he was still standing. We pushed back the bed and then he spoke.

"You are a genius! How did you know there was a mouse hole there? I clean the floors every day and move the beds and everything, and I've never seen it!"

After about a half a minute, I said, "I don't know. I just kind of knew there would be one there. I don't know how to explain it. It was like a picture of the mouse hole flashed in the back of my eyes. It's weird."

"But helpful! Now we can't get caught with the key! But what about the books?"

After another minute or so, another picture flashed in my head.

"Put it in the two cracks in the wall. You'll have to stand on your bed, then jump and put it in there."

Tom did as I said, and in a matter of seconds, the books were concealed inside the wall. If you hadn't known it was there, you would never suspect anything.

Tom got off the bed and said, "Another vision? Well, I love your visions! They just saved our as-"

"Sh! He's coming! Get in your bed and pretend sleep!"

We got in our beds just in the nick of time. Hairston came in. My heart was hammering and my brain was repeatedly saying "we're going to be caught, we're going to be caught, we're going to be caught", but I lay with my back to the door, and pretended to be in a sound sleep.

"Okay! I know you aren't asleep! Get off your lazy asses and start an early day of work! Sense you haven't slept, maybe you two need more work to make you tired enough for sleep!" Mr. Hairston yelled at the top of his lungs.

Tom pretended this big show of sleepiness, and I followed suit. My show I thought looked totally fake, but Tom could have gotten a trophy for his show.

"Hurry up!"

Like our usual schedule, we got out of bed and got ready to go to work.

So it went for months. During the day we worked, careful not to slack off for fear Mr. Hairston would become wise to our sleepless nights, and during the night we learned to read. We were both exhausted, but we were glad to be learning and reading. The books were very fun to read.

Soon we were getting thicker and thicker books from the closet. A closet of which remand shut, with out any care from Mr. Hairston. He, like predicted, assumed the key just fell off and wasn't worried about it. This was thankful sense Tom and I would have gotten sixty-two straight hours of work with out sleep if we had been caught.

It was amazing, but as we graduated from the smaller books and got larger ones, the cracks in the wall never got too small to hide it. If anything it seemed to expand. But that was impossible.

On the nights we risked putting back the books, being sure to keep them separate from the other books so that we could easily know which ones we have yet to read, and getting more, we never risked going back to the room and reading. Instead we just hid the key and books, and slept for once.

So that's how I was able to read The Golden Palace sign and any other sign, book or anything with writing on it. Thinking about learning and about Wolf dampened my spirits significantly. I missed my best and truest friend. I sighed.

"What's wrong Kyle?" "Dad" asked me.

"Nuthing," I lied.

"Honestly is the best policy Kyle," "Mom" said.

I quickly came up with a lie that would satisfy them both. "I was expecting something grander is all," I said. It wasn't a complete lie. I _was_ expecting something grander that would fit the name The Golden Palace better, but that wasn't why I sighed.

"There that wasn't that hard, was it?" "Mom" asked, as "Dad" finally found a parking spot.

"Dad" looked at me through the rear-view mirror. His dark blue eyes seemed to look right through my brain and know exactly what I was thinking.

I mentally shook off that absurd thought and got out of the car. I shut the door with a resounding "click" and followed the adults through the door, stopping when they stopped at the podium where a sign said:

"Please wait for a waiter/waitress to seat you. Thank you"

We waited, with the waft of the food's steam coming to us occasionally because the there were fans, blowing air around, on the ceiling with the lights connected to them. The smells smelled exotic and enticing, and my stomach growled low and deep as if to say hurry up or else it would make my body dive right into the buffet. The rumbling feeling in my stomach was something new. I was so used to being nearly starved with just rice and bread that the smell of _real_ luscious food was too much and it had to let me know it was getting hungrier and hungrier as the minutes ticked by one the fish clock above the podium.

"Dad" and "Mom" looked over to me, but only "Mom" said anything.

"Well, glad to see _someone's_ hungry!"

As she said that, she looked around, as if searching the people near-by that could have, and probably did, hear my loud rude stomach gurgle. Everyone seemed to be smirking, but they seemed to understand. Who's stomach wouldn't get hungry eating food. They of course didn't understand it was way worst for me, being so close to eating _good_ food, and as much as my stomach can handle. Yet, we were to wait, as my stomach growled again, louder and longer and deeper. I had no control over it. My face slowly started feeling red, and with the next giant grumble, my ears felt on fire. I felt embarrassed, but it seemed _nothing_ compared to how "Mom" looked. She looked like she would _gladly_ wear a brown paper bag over her head.

"Dad" on the other hand looked like it wasn't any big deal or embarrassing. If anything, he looked like he'd be ready to let his stomach grumble if the waiter didn't seat us. He looked sort of amused that my stomach grumbled so loud that even the people already seated and eating, turned to look who's stomach grumbled so much. Some how, his understanding and nonchalantly way of looking, cooled my face and made me want to grin.

Finally, probably brought over by my loud obnoxious stomach, the seating waitress came over, reached into the podium, got three menus out, and pointed at us to follow her. Before she could leave us, "Mom" told her that we needed four menus and that someone would be joining us later in the evening.

I looked at "Dad" and her curiously, but neither looked me in the eye, but instead followed the waitress. I had a strange horrible thought. What if Mr. Hairston had been invited? As a thanks for getting them a boy? Would I have to sit and sit by him at the same table? The thought quickly devoured my stomach and it's hungriness. My feet automatically followed along with my new "parents" but my mind was on the horrible eleven years at the dungeon of a home.

The seating waitress lead us to a booth and "Mom" told her that if a person was looking for a party, tell them that the Chrismans were here already. I sat in the booth by myself, and "Mom" and "Dad" got on the other side. "Dad" looked at me searchingly, but I let my face fall into nothingness. Something I had learned at the "home". How to look like I'm thinking of nothing and am innocent, when truly I am terrified that I'd get caught for the trouble I pulled.

The seat was squishy and the table a little sticky, but all-in-all it seemed like a good place to have my eleventh birthday. Wow, eleven. I smiled for the first time in a long time. It felt un-natural, but I liked the feeling. I was eleven and my wish of finally getting out of the foster home was made to reality. It's hard to believe that the day before I was just ten and living in a foster home, the load of work ahead of me, with nothing to look forward to. Today on the other hand, I was eleven, had parents, and for once in eleven years, I was about to eat as much food as my shrunken stomach would allow.

"Hey Mom! Dad! This is so totally great! I was _starved_ on the train ride!" a high pitched voice said, above me. I looked up and saw a straight haired blond with blue eyes that seemed to surpass the sky's blueness. _Mom? Dad?_ I was confused to why she addressed _my_ new parents as her own.

"Hey honey, how was the train ride? By the way Kyle, this is your sister." "Mom" said, laying the bombshell on me.


End file.
